MOSCOW: For almost a century after his death, Vladimir Lenin’s carefully preserved body has lain in a purpose-built mausoleum on Red Square — a glaring reminder of Russia’s communist past.

But the father of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution that founded the Soviet Union — and the 100th anniversary of his passing — have largely been ignored by ordinary Russians.

Few official events were scheduled to mark the centenary on Sunday, beyond a Communist Party ceremony at his tomb in the shadow of the Kremlin. For President Vladi­mir Putin, who has publicly chided Lenin for his supposed role in dividing the Russian Empire into nation states like Ukraine, this is convenient.

Putin, now mired in an almost two year assault against Kyiv, has instead championed Joseph Stalin — the man who led the USSR to victory in World War II, and who purged all his political opponents in a years-long reign of terror.

Putin, Lenin and Ukraine

Putin rarely mentions Lenin. So his attack on the instigator of the October Revolution, days before ordering his troops into Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022, was notable. In a vitriolic speech questioning Ukraine’s statehood three days before the attack, the Kremlin leader accused Lenin of having “invented” Ukraine when he founded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). By giving the Soviet republics a degree of autonomy, Putin argued, Lenin allowed the emergence of nationalism and the eventual implosion of the USSR.

“It was because of Bolshevik policy that the Soviet Ukraine came into being, which (one) would be perfectly justified to call Lenin’s Ukraine,” Putin raged. “He is its inventor, its architect,” he continued. “And now,” Putin said, “grateful descendants have torn down Lenin’s monuments in Ukraine.”

Kremlin ‘needs a Stalin’

Of all the Soviet leaders, it is Stalin that the Kremlin chief refers to most often — not to denounce his appalling record of repression, but to praise the statesman and wartime leader who defeated Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Putin has always sought to frame his military campaign against Ukraine through the lens of World War II, comparing Ukrainian authorities to the Nazis and presenting the conflict as an existential struggle for Russia’s survival. For the Kremlin, Stalin remains a model of victory and power, while Lenin is a loser.

“The current leadership needs Stalin because he is both a villain and a hero,” Alexei Levinson, a sociologist at the independent Levada institute, said. “He won the war, so all his atrocities are erased,” he said. In contrast, Lenin’s achievements have been undone or never materialised, he explained.

“Lenin is the leader of the world revolution — it never happened. Lenin is the leader of the world proletariat — it doesn’t exist. Lenin is the creator of the socialist state — it is no more,” he said. “And no-one wants to build it anymore either.”

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2024